About Alice by Calvin Trillin Page B

line in the center of the seat. At least, Sukey said it was in the center.
    There were constant border tensions. It was sort of like the border between Finland and the old Soviet Union. I played Finland. Sukey played the Soviet Union. Then my father did something that we now know was politically retrograde and maybe antifeminist. He told me, “We do not hit girls. You will never hit your sister again.” Sukey was not visited with a similar injunction. So I became a unilaterally disarmed Finland, while she was a Soviet Union bristling with weaponry. If I hadn’t had to be on constant alert because of Sukey’s expansionist backseat policy, I might now know the difference between a butte and a mesa.
    If I had followed my geographical bent, I would have become a regionalist, a geographer who decides where to draw the lines dividing the regions of the United States, like the Midwest and the South and the New England states. Actually, I do the same sort of thing, without a degree, except I only use two regions—partly because of my math. Math was my worst subject. I was never able to convince the mathematics teacher that many of my answers were meant ironically. Also, I had trouble with pi, as in “pi r squared.” Some years ago, the Texas State Legislature passed a resolution to change pi to an even three. And I was for it.
    The way I divide up the country, the first region is the part of the United States that had major league baseball before the Second World War. That’s the
Ancien
United States, or the Old Country. The rest of the United States is the rest of the United States—or the Expansion Team United States.
    For those of you who didn’t follow baseball closely in 1948, there’s an easy way to know whether you’re in the Old Country or the Expansion Team United States. In the Old Country, the waiters in an Italian restaurant have names like Sal or Vinnie. If you’re in an Italian restaurant and the waiter’s name is Duane, you’re in the Expansion Team United States.
    1988
    Spelling Yiffniff
    My father used to offer an array of prizes for anyone who could spell yiffniff. That’s not how to spell it, of course—yiffniff. I’m just trying to let you know what it sounds like, in case you’d like to take a crack at it yourself. Don’t get your hopes up: This is a spelling word that once defied some of the finest twelve-year-old minds Kansas City had to offer.
    The prizes were up for grabs any time my father drove us to a Boy Scout meeting. After a while, all he had to say to start the yiffniff attempts was “Well?”
    â€œY-i …,” some particularly brave kid like Dogbite Davis would say.
    â€œWrong,” my father would say, in a way that somehow made it sound like “Wrong, dummy.”
    â€œHow could I be wrong already?” Dogbite would say.
    â€œWrong,” my father would repeat. “Next.”
    Sometimes he would begin the ride by calling out the prizes he was offering: “ … a new Schwinn three-speed, a trip to California, a lifetime pass to Kansas City Blues baseball games, free piano lessons for a year, a new pair of shoes.” No matter what the other prizes were, the list always ended with “a new pair of shoes.”
    Some of the prizes were not tempting to us. We weren’t interested in shoes. We would have done anything to avoid free piano lessons for a year. Still, we were desperate to spell yiffniff.
    â€œL-l …,” Eddie Williams began one day.
    â€œWrong,” my father said when Eddie had finished. “Next.”
    â€œThat’s Spanish,” Eddie said, “the double
L
that sounds like a
y
.“
    â€œThis is English,” my father said. “Next.”
    Sometimes someone would ask what yiffniff meant.
    â€œYou don’t have to give the definition to get the prizes,” my father would say. “Just spell it.”
    As far as I